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When a huge number of people don't know something exists --like, say, that great new alt. rock band-- they are said to have 'discovered' it. Yes, the Norse knew about North America --or, rather, they knew there was land over here, without any idea how vast it was-- but that didn't end up on the maps the same way the Chinese knowledge of it didn't (and, obviously, the native american knowledge didn't transmit itself magically across the Atlantic either)...

The mistake is thinking that 'discovery' is synonymous with 'invented'. It was there, Columbus just learned about it and then told a bunch of Europeans. Most of them no more 'white skinned' than the natives they encountered in the Caribbean...on the islands they first landed on...

i think you already have your answer. columbus was a horrible person, raping and pillaging. every columbus day i talk to my childs teacher and tell them i dont want her learning about how "wonderful" he was. she does other work instead.

Columbus didn't discover anything. Leif Ericsson had built a settlement in Vinland 500 years previously. There is also evidence the Chinese and the Egyptians had been trading with the natives of North and South America prehistorically.